


One Thing

by TolkienGirlArchive (TolkienGirl)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Anti-Neal I suppose, Catharsis, Confrontations, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, F/M, Gen, Missing Scene, Set between 3x06 and 3x07--written when it aired so slightly AU, in a CS-friendly way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 05:52:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18162203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirlArchive
Summary: How could falling for him lift her heart so? [Emma confronts Neal, painfully, and finds comfort with someone else.]





	One Thing

She knew it was coming.

Ever since Neal had rejoined the group, she knew that it would only be so long before he had to…reaffirm that he wanted her.  _I'll never stop fighting for you._

_Yeah,_  she mentally snapped back. _Except when I question the motives of your heartless fiancé, or when Pinocchio tells you what to do._

She wasn't in the best mood, and objectively, she knew that she probably wasn't in the most rational one either. But self-awareness and humility had never, arguably, been among Emma Swan's best traits.

When he finally moved closer to her, to where she was sitting on the edge of the campground— _did the distance not send a message?_  She could tell from the look on his face that the time had come. Or to be more exact,  _his_  time had come. Hers, she had a distinct feeling, was not entirely a part of the equation.

"Emma." He spoke the word like a caress.

"Neal." She shrugged it off.

She felt him sigh. A little, hard spot of pain knotted up within her, because she was angry with him, and she'd never trust him again, and she still loved  _him_ , but she didn't love  _them_.

"Ever since…" (she wasn't sure where that was going—ever since  _Tamara turned out to be evil, just like you said…_ ever since _you found out I wasn't dead…_ ever since  _I called in that anonymous tip for your own good…_ ever since  _Tallahassee stopped meaning anything_ )

He tried again. "I know you've got a lot of feelings about me—us—at the moment. I understand that. But I just—look, we need to save Henry. But we need to do it together, and I just feel that if I don't understand what's going on, it's going to cause problems."

_For you, or for the mission?_  "What do you want to know?" she queried, layering her voice with steel so that it wouldn't tremble.

He glanced around uncomfortably, because everyone—Charming, Snow, Hook—was watching them and pretending not to.

"They're gonna hear you," she informed him. "Plus everyone's already shared their deepest darkest secrets. Just spit it out."

He shifted, a little closer than she would have liked. "Well, for starters, why are you so angry with me?"

The anger coiled up within her like a snake and struck. When it slipped out of her— _as easy as breathing, and just as painful_ —she felt like something inside her was going to cave in on the emptiness it left behind.

"Because you  _left me_. _"_ The words began as little more than a whisper, but they tore themselves out painfully. "And I know you had what you thought was a damn good reason, and I know it was so that I could fulfill my destiny, but you  _left me_. You could have stayed, and you could have spent the last eleven years trying to convince me that I was the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming—and who the hell knows, maybe I would have been a stubborn idiot, but maybe I would have believed it. Because I believed in  _you_."

She felt all their eyes on her, then—the beginnings of guilt on her parent's faces, Hook's perceptive gaze, Neal's openmouthed shock. He gathered himself after a moment, and she hated that—she was letting herself fall apart, and he didn't have it in him to do the same—and murmured, "Ems…I wanted, more than anything..."

_To come back. To love you. To stay with you._  She didn't care which of those he was about to say, because she wasn't about to let him finish. "Yes, you  _wanted._ " Her voice was rising in volume but not in tone—but to hell with it, let Pan listen in if he wanted to. Let the little bastard  _try_  to manipulate her feelings of abandonment, of inadequacy. Lord knew everyone else was. "You  _wanted_  to be there for me. Just like they—" she jerked her head in the direction of her parents, and tried to pretend that the sudden twist of anguish on Snow's face wasn't instantly mirrored in her own heart—" _wanted_  to give me my best chance. And you know what? They had good reasons too. They sacrificed everything so that I could save everyone. But they forgot  _one_   _thing_ —just like you did. They forgot to save  _me._ "

There it was. She knew, as soon as she said it, that that was what she'd been holding in all along—ever since the Curse was broken and everyone was so glad, so very glad that they were together again and that everything would be alright and that she was the Savior and nobody asked to know how she'd put in twenty-eight lonely years. A part of her—a part she was pushing down at the moment, because she was  _damn_  sick of letting it smooth things over—reminded her that it wasn't out of malice, or negligence that nobody had brought it up…it was because they couldn't bear to look at it, to see how it had hurt her. But she—she didn't have to look at it. She'd  _lived_  it.

And even though it was probably a stupid idea, she kept talking.

"So when I had  _our son_ , who is, by the way, the first person I've ever met who believed, not just in what I could  _do_ , but also, actually, in  _me,_  I did the very worst thing in the world…the very thing that happened to me. I left him." Her throat was dry, but the words wouldn't stop, not yet. "And that is why I am angry with you. Because you  _weren't there to stop me."_  Her vision slanted with tears, and she knew she'd gone too far—not for them, but for her. She was opening up too much.  _You're going to regret this._

_Well, add that to the list._

Nobody spoke after that. She saw her mother wrap her arms tightly around herself, as though she was trying to hold something in, and Emma had no doubt that, if her parents weren't still "on the outs," that she would have turned to her husband. David's shoulders had slumped slightly, and Emma saw, suddenly, what he'd look like as an old man.

_Children turn their parents' hair white._  The old adage was tossed up at her from the far reaches of her mind. She wouldn't let it hurt her.  _(As though you could keep something from hurting you)._

And Hook—but Emma couldn't bring herself to look at Hook. He was, curiously enough, the only person who she wasn't angry with at the moment, but the thought was more unsettling than helpful.

She stood up, ready to meet everything but their eyes. Words rose to her lips— _"I need some air. Give me a minute"—_ and receded. She was tired of explaining  _anything_.

So she just went. The sticky leaves of jungle plants slapped and clung at her hands and face, but she brushed them aside impatiently. A thorn caught against her arm, once, and despite herself she felt her heart jerk a little.  _Dreamshade_?

_Might as well be._ It  _would_  be just her luck.

She examined the thorny bush.  _Not Dreamshade. Just another nasty little gift on this horrible island._

She walked until walking became pointless; she had chanced upon the edge of a ravine, at the rocky bottom of which a stream trickled limpidly  _(mockingly_ ).

With a sigh that was not quite successful in masking a sob, she sunk down, pulled her knees up against her chest, and shut her eyes ( _if not her mind_ ) to demons past and present.

In movies, distressed heroines sat out until dawn, while the sky changed above them into varied shades of beauty. But she wasn't a heroine, not really, and this was Neverland—so only darkness grew.

After a few moments she heard steps—surprisingly soft—behind her and  _God-if-that-was-Neal—_

But the breeze carried with it the faintest waft of leather, and rum, and some other scent that was indescribable and dangerous and alluring and  _his_.

( _That didn't mean she wanted to see him_ ).

She set her jaw hard and stared forward into thickness of the night air and pretended that she was being stoic, instead of being on the edge of tears.

He sat down beside her, leather coat fanning out about him, crossing his legs casually.

"I don't feel like talking, Hook," she ground out at last, because the fact that he had no expectation of that made her more nervous than if he had.

"I've no objection to companionable silence, love."

"Why are you here?"

"Your father sent me."

"David? Why would David send you?"

She cast a quick glance in his direction, just in time to catch a sliver of a smirk tracing his lips. "I'm the most expendable."

"…or you're the only one I will talk to," she murmured, and was glad that it was too dark for him to see her redden. She hadn't meant to say it aloud.

"Aye, lass. That too."

"Well, there's still nothing to talk about. As you all just heard, I said everything."

He didn't answer that for a moment, and she wished, suddenly, that he  _would_ say something. Anything. Because despite his innuendos and his past and his pain he  _always_  spoke truth to her.

"If you've nothing to say, darling, I've nothing to ask." He reached inside his coat and pulled out his flask, quirking an eyebrow at her. "But, resourceful man that I am, have the remedy for everything."

"Rum," she gasped out. She was too tired and too  _done_  to be ashamed of how desperate she sounded for the alcohol. "Oh, God, give it to me."

He handed it to her, mischief flickering in his unfairly blue eyes. "I wish you'd be that eager for more than my rum, love."

She rolled her eyes and took a long draft, but something warmed inside of her that wasn't the rum. "Hook, for the last time, I don't give a damn about the kiss."  _Right now,_ she mentally added, but even the unspoken addendum didn't make up for the fact that it was a lie.

He leaned back slightly, his hook dragging into the dirt. "Ah."

She cleared her throat. "But that doesn't mean—I mean, I  _do_  give a damn about you."

He leaned a tiny bit closer—but not close enough that she could really point it out ( _not that she really wanted to)._ "Is that a profession of your undying love?"

She bent her head slightly, letting her hair fall around her face like a curtain, so that he couldn't see her expression. "It's a thank you."

"Gratitude is in order…?" he asked, nearly repeating the question that had started the whole… _(stupid, dangerous, blissful)_  'thing' the first time.

"No way in hell, buddy," she murmured. "It's a thank you for—for coming back. Always. Even when…" she swallowed, still haunted by the memory that she had left him in the giant's lair. "Even when I didn't deserve it."

"Emma," he said softly, turning slightly to face her. "Of the two of us, you're not the one who's undeserving."

There was too much to say to that, so she said nothing. The next moment, she felt the cool flicker of metal against her cheek, and realized that he was, in his typical fashion, calling her attention—lifting her hair back with his hook.

"Stop finding excuses to touch me," she admonished him, but her tone had no bite in it.

"Stop giving them to me, then," he retorted, with another of his infuriating ( _attractive_ ) winks.

"I don't understand," she whispered. "I mean, I do…I understand what—what you said in the caves. But I don't understand…why you would choose to believe—in me—"

"Because," he breathed, ( _too close for comfort and too far for love)_  "If there's one thing I know about you, it's that you'll succeed. Just as they all say. You're the Savior. But you said, too—Savior for all but yourself."

"So you're here to save me?" she demanded, and she meant it to be confident and self-assured and  _I-don't-need-anyone's-help_  but it came out quiet and broken and a tiny bit hopeful.

"Ship and services," he reminded her. "As a man of honor, I don't go back on my promises."

"Pirate's code?" she teased.  _How could falling for him lift her heart so?_

"Good form," he said, and his hand found hers.


End file.
